RBL 01/2020 Mahri Leonard-Fleckman the House of David: Between Political Formation and Literary Revision Minneapolis: Fortress

RBL 01/2020 Mahri Leonard-Fleckman The House of David: Between Political Formation and Literary Revision Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016. Pp. xvii + 334. Hardcover. $79.00. ISBN 9781506410180. Klaus-Peter Adam Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago The beginnings of Judah and the historical role of the Davidic dynasty present themselves as contested topics at the intersection between epigraphic, biblical, and archaeological evidence. With the exception of the Tel Dan stela, the Davidic dynasty’s distinctive absence from tenth-century epigraphic records puts the burden for the historicity of the Davidic dynasty mostly on the biblical record. For the historian and the biblical scholar, the synthesis of facts about the Davidic dynasty beyond its attestation in the assumingly old sources of the book of Kings is a notoriously testing exercise. The scholar faces a complex archaeological evidence as well as discourses about the redaction history in Samuel and Kings. The terrain has dramatically changed since in much of European scholarship over the last two decades the trust in the large pre-Deuteronomistic sources of the Succession Narrative and the History of David’s Rise have gradually given way to more nuanced pictures of redactional reworking in the material in 1 Sam 16–2 Sam 5 and 2 Sam 15–1 Kgs 2, respectively. Can a detailed look at the biblical record, namely, at the idiomatic “house of David,” save the Davidic history from its evaporation into the realm of a mythic past that minimalist historians have long declared? The book under review focuses on the term “house of David.” Synthesizing results from the use of analogous terms in ancient Near Eastern epigraphy and in biblical historiography and archaeology, it points to an understanding of the “house of David” and “Judah” as two This review was published by RBL ã2020 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp. separate entities. Comparing what is assumed to be the earliest material of 2 Samuel with the “house of X” and “mār X” terminology in Neo-Assyrian and in north Syrian contexts (chs. 1–2) leads the author to conclude that the biblical sources suggest a rule of the house of David over Israel prior to the dynasty’s rule over Judah. The earliest records of the Davidic dynasty do not refer to Judah as a political entity. They instead associate the house of David with Israel. Furthermore, some of the material that pertains to Israel builds the backbone of the layers that are relevant for the oldest historiography in 2 Samuel, reaching back before the eighth century BCE. It is exactly this material that recent continental scholarship ascribes to Judean post-720 BCE historiography. The study offers a thought-provoking example for the synthesis of sophisticated source-critical methodology and textual analysis for a reconstruction of the contours of a tenth/ninth- century history of the Davidic dynasty. This review first summarizes selected hallmarks before concluding remarks. The study sets out to challenge the predominant view on David as primarily a dynasty of Judah. First, it draws attention to the remarkably few references to Judah’s political agency in the oldest records, given the use of the term in the Saul-David tradition predominantly as a geographical name or as a reference to the population (2). Second, Judah’s appearance as a polity is limited to two sections that source-critical scholarship currently identifies as relating to late eighth-century historiography: (1) 2 Sam 2:4a, the anointing of David as king over Judah in Hebron; (2) Judah’s dominance over Israel at the beginning of the Sheba revolt 19:9bβ–15, 16b–18a; 19:41–20:5. These passages identify Judah as an acting polity specifically related to David (2). The core argument of the primary association of the house of David with its rule over Israel is based on an analysis of 2 Sam 2–5. It suggests that the absence of Judah as a polity in the record after Ishbaal’s death (2 Sam 4 until 2 Sam 5:5; 6:2; 11:11; 12:8) and before becoming a key player in the above-mentioned passages in the Absalom revolt (2 Sam 19) suggests a close link between the house of David as a ruling elite primarily over Israel that was only secondarily related to Judah. The fact that Judah is mentioned ten times in 2 Sam 2–5 (2 Sam 1:18 in 19–27; 2 Sam 2:4a, 7, 10, 11; analogous to 2 Sam 5:4–5; 2 Sam 3:8 MT gloss; and 3:10) with a lacuna after Ishbaal’s death conveys, the study suggests, the understanding that the Israelite kingship was transferred from the house of Saul to the house of David independently from Davidic rulership over Judah. In its core chapters 4–6, the study further substantiates how the scattered references to Judah together with the highly fragmented nature of references of the narrative to this polity exclude the primacy of this material. One core argument is the lack of a coherent plotline of the Judah references (4–5). For instance, 2 Sam 2 is largely dominated by David’s struggle to win over Israel, while Judah remains in the background. The author This review was published by RBL ã2020 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp. explains the rare use of Judah’s activity in 2 Samuel through the prevalence of the “house of David” terminology in 2 Sam 3:1; 15:16a. The study suggests that these passages focus on David’s rule over Israel alone rather than on Judah (6). Leonard-Fleckman proposes that this evidence renders the addition of the Israel material post-720 BCE unlikely; almost the entire David material would thus have been “invented” at and after this point in time (6). Rather, the study assumes a blurry and shifting geographical division between the tenth/ninth-century BCE Israel and Judah as the backdrop for the oldest tradition that envisions Israel as “a body politic operating in the central highlands and utilizing the Transjordan and the far south as temporary, liminal bases of power” (6). To buttress this, Leonard-Fleckman points to historical geography. Remarkably, early sources about Israel lack references to far northern territories. With the exception of 2 Sam 20, this material refers to a small-scale Israel prior to the ninth-century extension, a “little Israel” in the terminology of Lauren Monroe and David Fleming. Moreover, the narrative conceives of Israel as a mobile body politic “rather than a division of groups or tribes” (7). As a consequence, the alleged geographical realities of a pre-Omride period Israel are such that the “house of David” terminology may predate the eighth-century Judah tradition and that the Israel tradition has primacy over the Judah tradition; the latter serves in a Judean reading to reorient the story toward Judah (8). The analysis of the core tradition from 2 Sam 2–5 (ch. 4), 15–19 (ch. 5), and 1 Kgs 12 (ch. 6) supports these assumptions with further source-critical details. Leonard-Fleckman suggests that 1–2 Samuel may contain material from the tenth-century BCE, following the tradition of an interpretation of the Succession Narrative based on Rost yet nuancing this with more recent scholarship. While the study assumes pre-Deuteronomistic sources in both 2 Sam 2–5 and 15–19, it dates it neither in the seventh century or later (Römer), nor as pre-Deuteronomistic David tradition from around 720 BCE (R. G. Kratz, A. A. Fischer; 25–26). Discussing mostly these latter approaches, Leonard-Fleckman differs from their results mainly in dating some of the older biblical sources before 720 BCE to a collective memory of a “small” pre-Omride Israel. She assumes the creation of a story of David as king of Israel prior to the fall of the Northern Kingdom, based on allegedly eighth-century biblical sources that use the term “Israel” to refer to both kingdoms (H. G. M. Williamson, D. Fleming) such as Isa 8:14, dated pre-720 BCE, pointing to “the two houses of Israel” (32). The study presents a picture that, prior to the fall of Israel in 720, Judah envisioned a story of David’s and of Judah’s origin that would reflect its own historical genesis as it saw itself as “grown out of a larger configuration, a political body defined as Israel” (33). This process did not stop after the Assyrian defeat but continued and ultimately was integrated into the confluence of traditions available to the Deuteronomistic historiographer(s) (33). Methodologically, the study isolates primary fragments of the narrative material This review was published by RBL ã2020 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp. (“building blocks”) from their redactional reworking in an editing phase (110). In tension with the strand of current scholarship represented by Kratz, Fischer, and J. Wright, Leonard-Fleckman demonstrates that these independent sources convey historical assumptions that theoretically predate 720. Parts of the composition around David as king of Israel suggest his connection to Hebron and Mahanaim and that those references, written from a Judahite perspective conceive of Judah as part of Israel (31). Chapters 4–6 scrutinize the actual perceptions about Israel and Judah and the rule of the house of David prior to the late eighth century. Chapter 4 (109–45) adduces evidence for the antiquity of three independent building blocks of Absalom’s rebellion (2 Sam 15:1– 16a), the forest of Ephraim episode (2 Sam 18:1–19:9ba), and Sheba’s rebellion (2 Sam 20:14–22).

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